


The Strange Apprentice

by Vinnocent



Series: Teen Titans: Morph! [14]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, DCU, Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Book 7: The Stranger, Consent Issues, Episode: s01e12 Apprentice, Gen, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 10:56:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinnocent/pseuds/Vinnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slade's looking for a talented youth to tutor in the ways of Sladeness. But why settle for one heroic junior detective, when there's a junior killer running around Jump City?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Strange Apprentice

He runs. He runs and he runs and he runs.

He has to catch it. If he doesn’t catch it, it will hurt someone again. If it hurts someone, that will be his fault, because he didn’t stop it. Stopping it his job. He’s the only one who can.

Muscles burn. His feet hurt. His chest aches. He ignores it all, and he runs.

It runs through rocky landscape, and Robin pursues. It leaps across a deep crevice, and Robin pursues. It runs behind a rock formation, over a fissure, off the edge of a mesa, and still, Robin pursues. He is close. All he has to do is run a little bit longer. Fight a little harder.

It runs to a peninsula with towers of rock. It forgoes the path in favor of a long leap, and Robin follows. But he loses it among the towers.

“Dangerous behavior, Robin. You must be very eager to see me. I'm flattered.”

“I'm not here to see you,” Robin snaps. “I'm here to stop you.”

It steps closer into view, and he circles the dangerous creature carefully, looking for his opening. “But how can you stop me, when you don't even know our plans?”

Robin growls. Actually growls. “Like this,” he says, and he rushes it with a kick. But it dodges gracefully, turns, and slams him into one of the towers. He jumps toward it again, but again, it dodges. It swipes at him, and he dodges. Again, again, so quickly that he’s forced backward. Robin leaps forward, fist first.

It grins toothily and swipes ragged gauges through Robin’s flesh as it bats him aside. Angry, Robin turns and kicks off a column, ignoring the resultant damage. It dodges this attack too, and Robin ends up punching into another column. He attacks again, and again the same result.

Again.

Again.

Again.

It roars, rears, and smacks him down, his back scraping rock as he’s thrown across the peninsula. Around them, the towers he’d used, jumping off of them or trying to push it into them, are crumbling where they’ve been hit. But it’s not relevant. They’re only tools.

He stands again and he draws his birdarangs. He flings them with precision, but he doesn’t hit it. He hits the towers. The crumble even more. They begin to fall. It disappears in the dust, and Robin doesn’t wait for the dust to clear. He heads into the ruins he’s made, looking for it.

“Excellent, Robin. We appear to be evenly matched and equally ruthless.”

Robin peers around for the source of the voice, but all he sees are shadows.

“Not surprising. You and I are so very much alike.”

“ _I’m nothing like you!_ ” Robin rages, whirling to face the voice as it lopes toward him in the settling dust. Robin kicks it in that awful maw, sending sprawling backward among the ruins. “You're a killer!” Robin yells at it. “All you care about is destruction!”

The tiger smiles again. “And all you care about, you destroy,” it says. It looks around pointedly at the ruins that surround them, and Robin looks, too. Not at the ruins of towers, but at the ruins of statues.

Raven, four empty eyes peering back at him. Tom Berenson, sneering in a way Robin doubted came naturally to him. So many Taxxons, glistening rocks tumbling out of their broken columns. Melissa Chapman, her face a mask of horror and terror. Cyborg and Beast Boy, too, were among the fallen, both wearing horror and disbelief.

And standing above it all, the only figure that could withstand him, Kori’zzon. Their face was emotionless, but brown sludge dripped down from the eyes like a weeping saint.

“No!” Robin cries. He hadn’t meant to do this. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He hadn’t meant to use them like that. He’d thought they would understand, and that understanding would help them withstand it. “No, this is you!” he snarled at the tiger, hissing the words through sharp teeth. “This happened because of you!”

“A world of strife and war,” said the tiger. “And you look to me.” It lopes calmly toward him. “Is the alure, perhaps, not how unlike we are…” That massive, bloody maw grins down at him. “But what we have in common?”

“Robin!”

Robin gasped into wakefulness, sweat dripping off his brow. Cyborg, standing in his doorway, chose to ignore it. “Robin, get up,” he said. “It’s him.”

Robin peered back at him, groggy and confused.

Cyborg scowled, knowing this wasn’t going to end well, and explained, “It’s Slade.”

－ －

"These doors will be locked," Cassie pointed out.

"Not for long," said Rachel.

Ax was already demorphing, coming out of his human body and resuming his Andalite shape. Jake's body lengthened and striped orange-and-black fur spread like a wave over his skin. Cassie was already on all fours as rough gray fur grew thickly around her shoulders. Her mouth bulged out further and further to form a wolf's muzzle.

<There’s a guy coming up!> Tobias warned. <He’s got a uniform of some kind, with a bi-color mask. Looks like he might be a villain.>

Rachel, just beginning her elephant morph, groaned in their heads. <Really? A villain? Now? Does he have to?>

<Keep morphing,> Jake said, tail stretching out behind him and fists widening into massive paws. <I’ll take care of him.> He left the group, bounding around the building. There was indeed a man in a black suit with metal plates that must have been some kind of armor or padding, with a black mask featuring a brick red circle in the middle. It was kind of creepy, and something about the guy smelled… off. Jake figured that was normal for villains.

By then fully tiger, Jake roared and attacked. The figure dodged, but Jake’s tiger instincts knew how to handle tricky prey. He turned on a dime while coiling his muscles again. He leapt! He struck! Knocking the man down, Jake sank his teeth into the man’s shoulder--

and got a nasty shock.

Jake stumbled backward, pained and dazed. He looked at the figure as it climbed to its feet again, the exposed wires in its shoulder sparking. Two identical figures dropped down behind him. Another three on his right. More on his left.

Slowly, Jake’s tail lowered.

－ －

On a large monitor, Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy, and Cyborg flew after a speedboat racing along through a sewer for a destination unknown. “Hurry, young Titans,” said the man with the one-eyed mask, split in half with black on one side and brick red on the other. He watched the video with interest, but his voice was almost monotone, so unlike the gleeful posturing of Visser Three. “Your time is running out.”

Something crashed above and behind them, and Robin’s voice snarl, “Actually? We just went into overtime.”

Slade barely glanced at the newcomer. “Robin,” he drawled. “Welcome. I've been expecting you for some time.” He ignored Robin dropping to floor behind him and continued, “I was beginning to wonder if Cinderblock was too much of a challenge.” Finally, he turned toward him, holding up a small device with an antenna and just one switch. “Looking for this?” Slade taunted. He stepped forward and placed it like on the floor between them. “Well,” he said, “here it is.”

Now that was a more familiar tone of melodrama.

Slade stepped back. “If you want it, come and get it,” he said.

Robin watched Slade carefully for a moment, then snarled furiously. He ran forward, prepared for a direct attack, even if the detonator was closer than Slade. He knew Slade wanted him to go for the detonator, so he was going to go for Slade.

“RRROOOOOOAWR!”

Robin trips over his feet and fell hard to the floor. Angrily, he looked back over his shoulder for the source of the distraction. His eyes widened slowly to see a Siberian tiger throw itself against the bars of a big, iron cage in the back corner of the platform. It roared again and scratched desperately at the bars.

Confused, Robin mouthed, “Jake?”

<WATCH HIM!> Jake warned.

Robin’s focus snapped back to Slade, just as the mercinary slammed a foot down where Robin’s head would have been if Robin hadn’t leapt back. The move had been too slow. Slade meant only to taunt him, not to kill him. There was something he was waiting for. Robin crouched in preparation for another attack. “What are you up to, Slade?” he demanded. “Robbing a zoo?”

“Hardly,” said Slade. “And I think you know that as well as me, Robin, or do you not recognize one of your ‘Andalite’ companions?” Slade waved to a second monitor which blinked on to show a spyshot of Cassie, Jake, Marco, Rachel, and a still-human Tobias sitting in the food court of the local mall. “Or should I say… _Animorph_?”

"Oh, I'm sure we could talk them into letting us in for nothing," Marco said on the screen. "Just tell them we're Animorphs."

Rachel squinted at him. "Tell them we're _what_?" she demanded.

"Idiot teenagers with a death wish," Marco explained with a half-hearted sneer.

But the Jake on the screen, innocent and well-intention, repeated it. "Animorphs," he said. He smiled slightly. “It’s okay.”

Robin shot a glare at the Jake in the cage, no longer attacking but staring at the screen in disbelief. When he saw Robin glaring, he tensed defensively. <Yeah, because your totally professional team is completely aware that they’re being spied on _right now_ ,> Jake snipped, and Robin’s attention snapped back to the Titans attempting to attack the speed boat. They disabled the Sladebot, and Cyborg struggled with the boat’s controls, mostly managing just to break them.

“Are you just going to sit there and watch while your friends risk their lives without you?” Slade taunted. “I took you for more of a fighter, Robin.”

Jake lashed out at the cage again, roaring. The effort, of course, made no damage, but Slade did glance toward him. “I do suppose we should hurry this up, though. Your friend only has so much morph time left, and it does rather defeat the point if he gets stuck.”

Robin glanced uneasily toward Jake, tensed against the back of his cage and snarling. <He is not getting this body,> Jake snarled. <No matter what.> And Robin nodded in agreement before returning his attention to Slade, who was watching the screen again, where the team was attempting to dismantle the bomb. Raven’s telekinesis removed the screws and panel on the side, revealing the chromium core. Of course, this resulted in another explosive sneeze from Starfire, which Raven only barely managed to contain to everyone’s dismay.

“What are you waiting for, Slade?” Robin demanded. “Why do you drag out triggering it? Why do you let them get so close to stopping you?”

“I’m honestly disappointed in you, Robin,” said Slade. “After all this time, all your careful study, I’d expect you to know me better. I mean, really…” He glanced back at Robin over his shoulder. “Why would I want to stop time for _everyone_? Myself included?”

Robin went lax. His stomach churned and his chest grew tight. Slowly he raised to his feet.

<What are you doing?!> Jake demanded. <Hit him! Attack while he’s got his back to you! While he thinks he has you beat!>

But Robin just shook his head. Slade didn’t _think_ he had Robin beat; he _did_ have him beat. Robin just didn’t know how yet.

Screaming drew their attention to the second screen. The video had switched to another Animorph battle. It was brutal, sickening. Three wild animals and an Andalite against eight Hork-Bajir Controllers. A grizzly bear with exposed bone and blood pouring down its face. A wolf with the tip of its tail and one ear cut off used its jaws to snap a Hork-Bajir’s neck. The gorilla was already disemboweled. The Andalite tail whipped every direction, making precise strikes against Hork-Bajir Controllers, but they were still managing to sink blades into his flank.

"Die, gaferach, die!"

"RRRROOOWWRRR!"

Robin looked away as sick rose in his throat. On the first screen, the bomb collapsed after Cyborg managed to disarm it. The whole fight seemed like child’s play in comparison. The team stared in disbelief at the heap of metal.

Robin walked forward and picked up the detonator from the floor. He knocked it against his arm, and it fell apart pathetically. “It wasn’t real,” he said.

“Oh, the danger’s real enough,” said Slade.

On one screen, a bear shoved a Hork-Bajir Controller out a window and barely managed not to fall out after it. With an angry cry, a red-tailed hawk flew in and raked its talons across another Hork-Bajir’s face. Three Hork-Bajir beat a retreat. Four lay dead. The last was probably dead on the concrete outside. The gorilla, guts spilling out again, pushed the crumpled door back in place, and everyone quickly started demorphing. Or morphing, in Ax’s case. Vicious wounds healed closed, but dead bodies and the blood-slick floor remained a reminder.

On the other screen, a large cannon emerged from the front of the speed boat and aimed at the Titans. They turned, caught off-guard, and it shot at them. The blasts knock them backward off the boat, into the water. Robin wanted to scream, but he clenched his jaw instead. He wouldn’t give Slade the satisfaction. For all he knew, it wasn’t real.

Back on the Animorphs’ screen, a flying drone sank into view of the broken window. Horrified, Cassie, Marco, and Rachel all turned and shielded their faces as they pushed back into morph as quickly as possible. Tobias took flight again, but the drone shot him down. Shot the half-morphed Ax. Shot the still morphing kids.

The Titans emerged from the water and look around, confused.

“So aside from the nasty taste of sewer water in my mouth,” said Beast Boy, “I think I'm okay.”

Cyborg looked at the display on his arm. “Diagnostic sensors say I'm just fine,” he said before turning to knock water out of his ear.

“Whatever that beam was supposed to do, it didn't do it,” Raven decided.

Starfire grinned. “Then… we are victorious?”

On the second screen, the Animorphs roused, weary and confused. They appeared to be debating something, their thoughtspeak unable to be picked up by Slade’s microphones. Noting the still hovering drone, Marco grabbed up Tobias and the five of them beat a hasty retreat.

Robin scowled at the screen. “All that effort for a weapon that doesn’t work?” he asked as the two screens slid away.

If that mask could smile, he was sure it would be grinning in the most gleeful and patronizing manner. “I promise you,” said Slade. “It worked perfectly.”

“But they survived!” said Robin.

“Why would I want to kill them?” asked Slade. Behind him, a third screen slid down into view, larger than the others. On it were ten rectangles containing diagnostic data and icons of silhouettes that Robin recognized. Even if he hadn’t recognized them, they were all labeled: Aximili, Cassie, Marco, Rachel, Tobias on the top row, then Beast Boy, Cyborg, Phyzzon, Raven, and Starfire on the second row. Next to each was a view of the veins, red, blue, and grayish green blood pouring through them. Robin didn’t want to think about how Slade managed that shot. What he did see was that all of these veins were starting to get speckled with tiny black flecks.

Slade was definitely smirking when he said, “When I could make you kill them?”

Robin shook his head. He still wasn’t sure that he understood, but he knew he wouldn’t play Slade’s game. “No,” he insisted. “Nothing you do will make me sacrifice my friends.”

“Ah, but it’s not what _I_ do,” said Slade. “It’s what you do. The choices made by…” His eye moved over to the pacing tiger. “... the both of you.”

Jake stopped pacing to watch again.

“Nanoscopic probes,” Slade explained, gesturing to the display. “The chronoton detonator was merely the bait for a much larger trap. As for the Animorphs, well… it was only a matter of time before you attacked the earth-bound Kandrona supply, though I’d be interested to learn how you found out where it was so quickly.”

They’d attacked the Yeerks’ _food_? Robin shot another glare at the tiger, but Jake neglected to notice.

Slade raised his hand, and a small device with two small buttons on top, one red and one orange, extended itself into his grip. “You see,” he said, “with the push of a button, my probes will destroy your teams… your _friends_ from the inside out.”

“You can't control them,” Robin insisted. “No matter what you threaten, they'll never obey you.”

Slade paced around Robin, standing between him and the cage. “This isn't about your friends, Robin. It's about you. The both of you. It always has been. Well, you for slightly longer than him, but I know a comrade when I see one.”

Robin just stared at him. “What?” he demanded.

“Sending trouble your way. Leaving cryptic clues for you to unravel. I was testing you. For some time now, I have been searching for an apprentice. Someone to follow in my footsteps.” He leaned in close. “And I've chosen two. Congratulations.”

Robin almost laughed. Almost. “No way would I ever--" but Slade raised the buttons again, and Robin’s mouth snapped shut on instinct.

“If you join me, if you swear to serve me,” Slade promised, “if you never speak to your friends or allies again.” He gestured to the upper row of the screen. “I will allow the Animorphs to live.”

Robin’s eyes widened. He stepped back in surprise. “What?” he demanded again.

Slade finally returned his attention to Jake. “And you. If you are obedient, swear yourself, break contact with your friends… I will allow the Teen Titans to live.”

Jake and Robin exchanged nervous glances.

“You see, while I do admire your abilities and your decisions, neither of you, on your own, compares to the complete set,” Slade explained. “And that set doesn’t include a nothlit.” He turned his hand over to check a display on his wrist. “Thirty-seven seconds left on your morph clock, Jake. Thirty-five. Serve me? Or destroy the Teen Titans? Can you trust _him_ with your friends’ lives if the Titans die? Slowly? Painfully?”

Robin collapsed, kneeling on the ground, with his head in his arms, trying to push Slade and Jake out of his thoughts. There was no way. No way. Whatever Slade might have found out about the Animorphs, there was still the possibility of some things being secret. No way would Jake risk that. He had to think of something. There had to be some way to stop this. Thirty seconds. Less, even. If only he could get to those buttons before Slade pushed them. But how? The device was in his hand. His thumb hovered over both. Twenty-five seconds. If he could sneak up on Slade…

“Good boy,” Slade drawled approvingly.

Robin turned to see the orange fur and tail retracting. He stared at Jake in disbelief as muscles shifted and bones ground against each other, taking on a more human shape. Jake stared back.

<They can save the world without us,> was all he said before the last of his feline features melted away.

Robin nodded once, took a deep breath, and stood. “Now what?” he said, turning to Slade. “Sir?”


End file.
